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Hi there, hoping someone can point me in the right direction.
Purchased a 2003 SLK320 for my daughter last December and the car is generally perfect. Mint condition, low miles (about 65K) and very well cared for. We live in Phoenix and its very hot here at the moment. On two occassions during normal driving, the car has completely shutdown on me in the middle of normal driving. No warning - just total shutdown.
Error condition shows on the dash, but its a dangerous situation. Yesterday it shut down on me while driving at about 45 mph, losing power steering and all electrical entirely. I'm not exactly sure of the cause, but the two times this has done it was in 105F + temperatures. I've not had this occur in our winter months prior, but that doesn't necessary mean it wouldn't have. We drove it sparingly until about 3 months ago.
After about 2 minutes of total shutdown, I can restart the car and it drives like nothing happened. My initial thought is some form of electrical short circuit or something like that.
Can I get any diagnosis information from any onboard systems that would retain the error codes so I can try and work out the root cause of this? I'm a bit worried that this could be a major cost issue if I take it to a mechanic without being able to at least isolate what may be causing this. Since its hard to reproduce, I'm hopeful that there is some information provided that I can extract from the car itself as to the error and what it was reported as?
Sounds like the crank shaft position sensor (CPS). Common on this engine and is a regular maintenance thing. It happened to me twice (exact same, total shut down, wait 10 minutes and then up and running like nothing happened). Cost me $320 to have an independent replace but you can purchase yourself for $50 to $80. I have had no re-occurrence since.
Sounds like the crank shaft position sensor (CPS). Common on this engine and is a regular maintenance thing. It happened to me twice (exact same, total shut down, wait 10 minutes and then up and running like nothing happened). Cost me $320 to have an independent replace but you can purchase yourself for $50 to $80. I have had no re-occurrence since.
Thanks for this info. I have booked the car into a local service shop for the CPS replacement. Pricing was exactly as you had stated.
Out of interest, if you remember back to when this occurred to you, did you get an "Error" message on the dash, and BAS lights, etc. all showing? It definitely does sound like a sensor issue, but I'm just interested in comparing my experience when this has happened with yours.
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